Women's basketball: CU Buffs' Lauren Huggins waiting her turn

Freshman has not gotten on court in first two games

Lauren Huggins is still waiting for her first opportunity to see the floor for the Colorado women's basketball team.

For now, the freshman is soaking up her new surroundings and learning what she can.

"Honestly, things are going great," said Huggins, a 6-foot-1 wing. "Practice is going well and even though I haven't gotten in the game yet, I'm still out there trying to support my teammates as much as I can."

Huggins was a big part of CU's highly rated 2012 recruiting class. ESPN's HoopGurlz.com rated her as the 11th-best wing in the country and the 64th-best player overall. She was a two-time All-Continental League choice at Littleton's Heritage High School.

The Buffaloes (1-0) have played just twice, including an exhibition game, and Huggins is the only one of the team's three true freshman on scholarship -- Jamee Swan and Ky Weston are the others -- that has not played yet.

Her time will come, though.

"Lauren came in during the preseason and was a little bit behind, we felt like, in terms of her conditioning and her physical presence," head coach Linda Lappe said. "I think she's gotten a lot better in the last few months, especially once practice has started. We knew that was where Lauren was going to be able to come in and help us out and do some good things."

Huggins admits she was behind some of her teammates, but has also been pleased with her progress so far.

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"With the leadership we have behind (seniors) Meagan (Malcolm-Peck) and Chucky (Jeffery), they definitely pulled me up and I'm continuing to make strides," she said.

Watching both games from the bench may not be exactly how Huggins envisioned her college career would start, but she's not at all hanging her head. In fact, she's enjoying the benefit of getting a new perspective on the game.

"It's exactly what I expected," she said of watching from the bench. "Great players are ahead of me right now and they're my teammates. If I can work to get time on the floor and help them out, that's great. If they're out-working me and I can support them on the bench, good for me too.

"I think that especially observing from the bench and seeing where I'll be playing and knowing tempo and speed and exactly where I'll need to be to get on the floor is definitely going to help."

Although Swan and Weston have played in both games, Lappe said that doesn't necessarily mean Huggins is behind her classmates at this point. Lappe also said that it often takes freshmen a while to get comfortable.

"Even Jamee and Ky still have a long ways to go," Lappe said. "In terms of what we expect from these freshmen, we knew we didn't have to have them come in and be our leading scorers or be our leading rebounders this year, that they could more so fill a role and progress.

"Your program is in a good state when you don't have to play freshmen in order to compete. We think our freshmen are going to be very good, we just don't know when that exactly is all going to take place."

Huggins is hoping it'll be sooner rather than later for her, but until then, she's happy to progress and do her part for the Buffaloes. When she is ready, she's expected to give the Buffs a solid presence on defense and to be a threat from 3-point range.

"Work as hard as I can to get some time on the floor," she said of her goals for this year, "and help our team reach the goals we want to have."

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